Teen girls get hands-on experience in STEM fields on SheTech Explorer Day

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OGDEN, Utah – Four hundred teenage girls visited Weber State University on Friday to check out some STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) based careers.

An organization called The Women Tech Council created a group called “SheTech Explorer Day” that mentors girls in STEM.

“What's really cool about SheTech is they are going to work with actual people within technology, so people within companies, and actually engage with them and learn from them," said Sara Jones, COO of The Women Tech Council. "They'll learn about aerospace from a rocket scientist. So they can envision these careers and they can actually go get a job in these careers.”

Jones is an engineer and she said there is a small percentage of women in the computer science field, only 10 to 15 percent.

“Utah is in this really interesting problem where we have this booming economy, the tech companies are growing like crazy here, and we actually don't have enough of our young workforce going to these jobs," she said. "Our goal is to give them exposure to a lot of different careers, so they will experience things from virtual reality, to 3D printing, to aerospace dynamics, graffiti art: They are going to leave with a dozen different ways that STEM can influence their careers.”

SheTech is expanding to the entire state, and the next few stops include Cache County, Box Elder County, and southern Utah.